Month: December 2012

The limits Bob Wright would put on guns:

Imagine the following world, which it's within our power to create: It's illegal to sell or possess a firearm–rifle or pistol–that can hold more than six bullets. And it's illegal to sell or possess a firearm with a detachable magazine. In other words, once a shooter exhausted the six rounds, he couldn't just snap in another six-round magazine; he'd have to put six more bullets in the gun one by one.

In this world, a significant number of those 20 Newtown first graders would almost certainly be alive. Lanza reportedly fired six bullets from his AR-15 just to get inside the locked school. So, in the alternative universe I just described, he would then have to more or less exhaust one of his two pistols to kill the principal and school psychologist he encountered after entering. At that point, as he headed for the classrooms, he'd have six more rapid-fire bullets left, after which he'd have to reload his guns bullet by bullet.

Tomasky sees no reason to allow ownership of assault weapons:

Here's an idea: If people really have a need to shoot Glocks and Sig Sauers at a firing range, how about the firing range own them and keep them, and enthusiasts drop in and rent the firearm of their choice for an hour or whatever? I know this violated the capitalist principle of ownership, and yes, it impinges on "freedom," but it seems to me to slake the thirst in a way that maybe people could get accustomed to over time.

How Frum measures success:

When thinking about gun measures and mental health measures, the right question to ask isn't: will such-and-such a measure prevent all killings? The right question is: will it contribute to reducing the number of killings as we have previously successfully reduced automobile fatalities?

Kleiman, meanwhile, argues that "Sandy Hook is utterly atypical of our homicide problem" and that the vast majority of murderers "don’t fit the profile of the Sandy Hook killer."

Like TNC, Alan Jacobs rejects calls to arm teachers:

We can be absolutely sure that within a few years more people would be killed by teachers who fired their weapons accidentally or in misplaced anger or fear, or by students who stole their teachers’ guns, than have ever been killed in school massacres like those in Newtown and Columbine.

But what troubles me most about this suggestion — and the general More Guns approach to social ills — is the absolute abandonment of civil society it represents. It gives up on the rule of law in favor of a Hobbesian "war of every man against every man" in which we no longer have genuine neighbors, only potential enemies. You may trust your neighbor for now — but you have high-powered recourse if he ever acts wrongly. Whatever lack of open violence may be procured by this method is not peace or civil order, but rather a standoff, a Cold War maintained by the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Ezra examines the evidence:

Did the law have an effect on mass shootings? That’s possible. As this chart from Princeton’s Sam Wang shows, the number of people killed by mass shootings did go down in the years the ban was in effect (save for a surge in 1999, a year that included Columbine) … Because mass shootings are relatively rare, it’s difficult to tell whether this is just random variation or whether the assault weapons ban actually had an impact. Still, the number of mass shootings per year has doubled since the ban expired. That’s suggestive, at least.

Ty Diaz is kissed by his mother Yvette at a memorial down the street from the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 16, 2012. Twenty-six people were shot dead, including twenty children, after a gunman identified as Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Lanza also reportedly had committed suicide at the scene. A 28th person, believed to be Nancy Lanza, found dead in a house in town, was also believed to have been shot by Adam Lanza. By Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

A popular media critique that still holds up:

Readers add to the criticism:

Can we please discuss the interviewing of children at Sandy Hook elementary school? It was repulsive. Read this article by Kim Simon to get an idea of just how wrong it was.

Another:

The media always gives killers like this one their 15 minutes of fame. How much of this goes into the calculations of mass murderers? This is never really talked about in the media (for obvious reasons). Also, many of the same people in the media who wring their hands over tragedies like this, turn around the next day and celebrate the "artistic genius" of guys like Tarantino and the violence porn he puts out. I am no prude, and certainly do not think such movies should be banned. But, why are guys like Tarantino considered "cool" and "edgy" and not shamed by the media?

Another:

I am a lefty who also happens to be against gun control, and the occurrence in Newtown has profoundly affected me. I believe I know what action should be taken that would really have a profound effect in limiting these types of horrific events: A media blackout.

No other action is really going to do much, be it increased regulations, profiling the mentally ill, providing arms to teachers (Congressman Gohmert suggested that this could have been prevented had the principal been armed) or even providing every school with an armed guard. These guys are desperately unhappy and depressed, and want to go out in a blaze of glory. If you eliminate the blaze of glory, you will eliminate most of the motivation they have to perpetrate these types of horrific crimes. It's the only thing I can think of that I believe might actually be effective, even though I know for a fact that those in the media would adamantly insist on keeping their options open to report these types of occurrences no matter what the consequences of their actions might be.